While there is a lot of information I didn't know about Jackie Kennedy, I felt this was way over the top in detail, and very boring. I don't think it deserves a review.

I started reading this biography a few years back, but abandoned Jackie's life story - according to Sarah Bradford - midway through, for no reason other than already having read countless other Kennedy biographies. Bored by another book recently, I decided to pick Jackie up again.

A better title might have been 'The Many Faces of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis', who seems to have been able to mould her personality to suit her surname, from privileged daughter to devoted wife and regal First Lady, doting mother, professional widow, socialite and native New Yorker. I can only admire her bravery in making the most of her life in every situation.

Bradford is thorough and comprehensive in her account, if 'thorough' means cribbing the biographies of every tom, dick and harry - or Jack, Lyndon and Maud Shaw - who ever met Jackie, and quoting from mysterious 'friend of a friend' sources. The options of any biographer tackling such a popular and well-documented personality must be similarly limited, of course, but the end result is still seems slightly lazy and 'grubby'. There is gushing praise from those who loved Jackie, scurrilous gossip from those with an axe to grind, along with the occasional documented fact, so the reader is almost left to choose their own path - did she have an affair with Bobby Kennedy after Jack's death? What were her true feelings for Aristotle Onassis? You decide.

I still have a massive crush on Jack Kennedy, in spite of all his failings (maybe even because of them), and Jackie too, so I don't mind reading the wheat and the chaff of biographies. Bradford's is easy to read and comparatively brief, at least. ( )

A very comprehensive and well written book. Very detailed and pretty shocking to read about the truth behind the image. ( )

A decent book... given the author's credentials, I expected more fact and less hearsay/ gossip... a bit too gossipy at times for me...and the amount of time spent on the philandering of the Kennedy men toook away from the life of Jackie... so many anecdotes about affairs not only of JFK but of dad and brothers... didn't understand how that shaped Jackie... it clearly did, but wasn't articulated well. In any event, Jackie was characterized as a woman with a strong sense of self, who focused on her passions and her steadfast love of her children. ( )

This is a very negative bio of Jackie. The author puts Jacki in a bad light in every other sentence. ( )